The Bells To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! O, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 35 Hear the loud alarum bells- What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! How they scream out their affright! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, Leaping higher, higher, higher, By the side of the pale-faced moon. 50 Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells How they clang, and clash, and roar! On the bosom of the palpitating air! By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows: Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells Of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells In the clamour and the clangour of the bells! 69 Hear the tolling of the bells— What a world of solemn thought their monody In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. The Bells And the people-ah, the people— And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stoneThey are neither man nor woman— They are neither brute nor human— They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A pæan from the bells! With the pean of the bells! Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the tolling of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells Bells, bells, bells To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 113 1849. Edgar Allan Poe. THE BELLS OF SHANDON WITH deep affection And recollection I often think of Those Shandon bells, Their magic spells. On this I ponder And thus grow fonder, Sweet Cork, of thee; With thy bells of Shandon, Of the River Lee. I've heard bells chiming Tolling sublime in Cathedral shrine, While at a glib rate Brass tongues would vibrate 16 |